


Pearl

by Lolymoon



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Cherish The Peanut Week, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Healing, Heavy Angst, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6101608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lolymoon/pseuds/Lolymoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"It was all her sister's fault, it would grow into the startling blue eyes of the little girl, her flowing red hair, into her likeness to the woman who'd tried to steal everything away from her, who'd tried to make her life a living hell and succeeded at least in hurting in the most degrading way the people she loved. Regina had thought herself better, stronger than this, but perhaps in Pearl she would always see the truth of her conception, and never get past it.</em><br/><em>But the little girl's eyes turned black, and the red wild mane she'd expected never grew on her head. Dark hair and dark eyes possessed Pearl's face, and Regina's delusions about her relationship with the baby didn't hold so strong anymore. And she remembered that there were far more terrifying shadows than her sister's."</em><br/> <br/>In which Robin and Zelena's child grows up to look like Cora. And Regina doesn't have the first clue on how to raise a daughter without hurting them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pearl

**Author's Note:**

> This is really rather angsty. It deals with a lot of Regina's past and trauma and provides new ones.
> 
> There is very little Outlaw Queen happening in the fic, it's all about Regina and her relationship to the little girl she raises, her daughter, here called Pearl.
> 
> There is a dash of Swan Queen friendship, and Golden Queen healing. For the purpose of this story, Rumple never got his powers back in season 5, which would have made for a better script anyway.
> 
> Enjoy, if I can say so.

The first time it happened, she understood she was the source of the problem, but she mistook what the problem was.

She felt it, somewhere between the moment Robin's little girl was placed into her arms and the moment she was removed, not crying, not fussing, just looking up at her with big, accusing eyes, and Regina had no excuses to give her, no reassurances. She felt it, and that was all.

Nothing.

She felt nothing.

She didn't freak out right away. She remembered how hard it had been with Henry at the beginning. She knew better than to think maternal instinct was just something that sprouted unprompted out of you. She was aware of her own shortcomings too.

She just thought it would take some time, that's all.

And then a bit more.

And when it still didn't kick in after Pearl's first birthday, that was the cue for the guilt and the worry to creep in, and alter every interaction she had with the baby girl.

She thought it was Zelena's shadow that still haunted her. Even though the woman had finally agreed to step back for the sake of her child (after yet another one of her insane scheme almost lead to Pearl's death – her sister had crumbled to her knees, holding on to her spasming stomach as if her pain had been a raw, living thing in her insides devouring her, and she'd begged, she'd _begged_ \- Regina still shudders at the memory, hitting too close to home - for Regina to take her, to take her and make sure she would never be able to hurt her baby again. She wasn't sure she was the best suited to keep that particular promise towards children), even though her visits have been few and monitored, Regina thought that was it. The reason she couldn't connect to Pearl. It was all her sister's fault, it would grow into the startling blue eyes of the little girl, her flowing red hair, into her likeness to the woman who'd tried to steal everything away from her, who'd tried to make her life a living hell and succeeded at least in hurting in the most degrading way the people she loved. Regina had thought herself better, stronger than this, but perhaps in Pearl she would always see the truth of her conception, and never get past it.

But the little girl's eyes turned black, and the red wild mane she'd expected never grew on her head. Dark hair and dark eyes possessed Pearl's face, and Regina's delusions about her relationship with the baby didn't hold so strong anymore. And she remembered that there were far more terrifying shadows than her sister's.

“Mama.”

Pearl was such a serious, grave little girl. Even when she said her first word, she didn't smile. She gazed straight at Regina, pointed her finger like a death sentence, and uttered the dreaded word.

“Mama.”

Everyone laughed and complimented the toddler and Robin kissed Regina on her temple, all misty eyes and blubbery laugh, and Regina smiled, smiled till it ached and she scooped the little girl – her daughter – in her arms, all the while feeling like she was being choked, and throttled, and crushed, the weight of the words too heavy for her to carry.

Mama.

Daughter.

That night, she dreamed of broken bones and spidery fingers touching her until she was nauseated. When she woke up, urine was leaking along her thighs, and her nose was bleeding.

Pearl was crying out for her in the nursery.

…  
..  
.  
..  
...

“Ready for Granny's?”

She welcomed Emma in with a smile that managed the feat to be both tight and relieved. Snow followed close behind, and she allowed the loose hug the woman gave her.

She grabbed her coat and her purse, then stilled as a little hand wrapped around her calf.

“Mama. Don't go.”

She looked down, heart quickening, to the ground where Pearl was crawling.

As always, the little girl's face was curiously devoid of expression, but her voice wobbled.

“Don't leave me.”

Regina forced the tender smile out of her mouth.

“It's only for a few hours, sweetheart. And Snow is going to stay with you so you won't be alone until your papa comes back from work. All right?”

“I don't want you to go.”

Her skin began to crawl under her daughter's touch.

“Sweetie, let me go, now.”

“No.”

“Pearl, let me go!”

She hadn't meant to raise her voice so loud. She visibly flinched, and caught the worried frown the two other women gave her, but the little girl was imperturbable.

Regina felt paralyzed. She knew the solution was to pick up her daughter and put her into Snow's arms. She would latch onto her like she always did when she was put into someone's arms and forget all about her leaving mother. It was a simple thing to do. Yet she couldn't. do. it.

She felt the first tell-tale signs of a panic attack, shallow breaths, quickening pulse, cold back, warm face, sweaty palms, dry mouth.

“Honey, please, let me go,” she whispered, feeling her voice shaking, to her ultimate shame, and then Snow finally decided to act and picked up the little girl herself, easily sitting her on her hip.

“Come on, now, Pearl. We need to let Mommy have a night out with her friend, okay? She needs to have some fun! And we're gonna have fun too, you'll see, I've got lots of surprises for you.”

“Can we watch a movie?”

Regina quickly nodded and Snow went along.

“Of course! You'll get to pick. Now, why don't we get started on dinner first?”

“Okay,” said the little girl, her eyes still looking at Regina, unflinching.

“Great! Now, say goodnight to Mommy.”

Regina fought and won a great battle with herself as she leant over to kiss her daughter's cheek. She mouthed a 'thank you' to Snow as she carried the toddler away in the kitchen. Then, she felt Emma's hand settle gently on her arm.

“Ready when you are.”

She took a deep breath, and walked out the door and towards the Bug as if nothing had happened.

And nothing had.

Nothing anyone could understand.

It wasn't until they approached the diner that Emma finally spoke:

“You're gonna tell me what the hell that was about?”

“I don't know what you are referring to, Miss Swan.”

“You don't? How about you almost passed out because your daughter was touching your leg? Nothing to say about that?”

The words seemed harsh, but the tone was gentle, minding – so very Emma, so cautious about her feelings, but so intent on digging out the truth.

But it wasn't a truth meant to ever be faced.

“I'm feeling a little faint tonight, dear. Nothing to worry about.”

Emma parked the car in front of Granny's, and stared at the wheel, her jaw set, her knuckles white, until she turned to Regina with intense eyes.

“Look. You know most of my past. You probably know more of it than anyone at this point. You know some of what I've been through, and what I saw. And the eyes you were making back there? I saw them, Regina. Too many times. Those were haunted eyes. And I've got a pretty good inkling on what they were being haunted by.”

She waited, too urgent, asking too much of her, bursting through every crack in her armor with the grace of a bull in a china shop, typical Emma Swan fashion, one that was endearing, usually, one that had worked many times, but not this time, this time it wouldn't, this time it couldn't, because –

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Regina...”

“I can't, Emma!”

Her shout echoed empty in the small space of the car. Her eyes were wild, terrified and filled with tears.

“I _can't_. Not now, not ever, if – if I let it out, if I begin to think it, then...”

She took a deep breath, and pressed her fingers against her forehead, closing her eyes to fight against a raging migraine she felt brewing.

“I have to think of Pearl first.”

Emma lowered her eyes, her face closed, unconvinced.

“You won't help your daughter by refusing to help yourself.”

“This discussion is over. Now, let's eat.”

She unbuckled her belt, and placed her hand on the handle. Emma stopped her.

“Regina. Please.”

She blinked. She remained still for a long pause, Emma's hand warm on her shoulder.

“Why did she have to be a girl,” she breathed, the sound tortured and raw, her eyes burning, and she got out of the car, slamming the door close behind her.

…  
..  
.  
..  
...

When Pearl grew up to be six, the resemblance started to get uncanny.

Not that anyone would have noticed, of course.

For all the evil she had done here, this town had seen very little of Cora, and no one had known what she’d looked like before her thirst for power utterly corrupted her.

There was no one to tell Regina that it wasn’t all in her head, not at first.

She brushed her daughter’s hair and she felt phantom fingers severely tug her own locks in place.

She heard her daughter's laugh and she saw blood-red lips curling into a chilling smile.

She met her daughter’s eyes, and she felt a cold hand reaching into her chest and grasping avidly at her heart.

“She looks like you,” Robin told her one day, because he didn’t know better, because he didn’t think about who she got her looks from, and he seemed grateful, and she understood, she could understand his fleeting sense of relief in not having to face even a poor copy of your tormentor.

She understood so much.

He mistook the tears rolling on her cheeks for joy at what he thought to be a compliment, and she didn’t have the heart to disabuse him.

It was Gold who eventually brought her an unexpected support while confirming her fears.

“A rather spirited girl,” her old mentor commented as he watched nine-year-old Pearl flutter around his shop, busy like a butterfly, curious and snooping around shamelessly.

Regina warned her once again to not touch anything, then set her hands on the counter, not quite willing to meet Gold’s eyes.

Ever since he had lost the Dark One’s powers, and fought everyday to become a better man, the man he could have been all along, they had never actually dealt with their issues. He had come one day to apologize for the role he’d had in her life, for the pain he’d inflicted. She had snapped and said she’d given as good as she got, and didn’t care for his apology. They both knew she’d been lying. They’d both knew nothing was healed. And perhaps, never would be.

And yet, it was he she’d come to see for help, once again.

Old habits die hard.

“I need a potion,” she told him quietly, and he raised a surprised eyebrow.

“I don’t really dabble in magic anymore, dearie. That is now your sole domain of expertise.”

“Cut the crap, Rumple. We both know that even though you don’t have powers anymore, you’re still the most knowledgeable creature about magic in this world. I know you can still make potions, they don’t generally require a magical user. This one is… tricky. I can’t do it myself. I don’t have the… sneakiness for it. One you possess in abundance.”

Gold smiled one of his old, cunning, sharp smile, but it had an underlying… fondness about it.

“What you call sneakiness, dearie, I call subtlety. Not a quality of yours, that much is true. Perhaps I could be swayed to make that potion for you… if you cared to tell me what potion it is to begin with.”

She looked away, her gaze catching on Pearl’s shimmering dress twirling among the shelves.

“To alter someone’s perception,” she eventually whispered. “So they won’t see… so they won’t be hindered anymore by -”

Her throat closed up, and she curled her fist on the counter. Neither of which Gold needed to notice to understand too much about the struggles in his once apprentice.

He followed her gaze to Pearl, and spoke in a low, almost gentle voice.

“She’s the spitting image of Cora, isn’t she? Even at her age, it shows. She’ll be beautiful.”

Regina flinched and stared at him in shock, until realization caught up with her.

“I keep forgetting you knew my mother before… before.”

“I did. That was my misfortune.”

Regina slowly nodded, looking away at her daughter again, as if she understood – and maybe she did. She knew first-hand the havoc Cora left in her wake.

“I won’t make that potion Regina.”

Her head snapped back to him, a panicked snarl on her lips.

“What?”

His face showed sadness, and he looked at her with pity, or was it compassion, she had never differentiated well between both, nor received either well, but his tone was one of resolve.

“You don’t need that potion.”

“I think I know better than you do about what I need.”

It was such a loaded statement that Gold took the time to close his eyes, guilt passing in a flash over his face, so quick you weren’t sure you’d seen it. When he opened them again, he still hadn’t wavered.

“You don’t need that potion because you’re stronger than the shadow of your mother. And because you owe it to your daughter to see her as she is, not how you wished she was. You know, by now, that the easiest path is never the right one.”

She wanted to hurl things at his face like she had done so many times, to claw at her own, to spit insults, to protest… she did nothing. She felt the seal of truth being set on her heart, forbidding her to err any further.

“When did you get so wise?” she finally said, with a voice that cracked on all its edges, and Gold smiled, resting a hesitant hand upon her painfully tight fist.

“Oh, Regina. I had centuries of mistakes to learn from. Both my own and others. And you were, by far, my most unforgivable one. I know you have no reason to trust me, or listen to me, but I actually – this time, I sincerely – want you to be happy. And I know your happiness can’t be reached with the crutch of magic.”

She bit her lips. She didn’t remove her hand.

“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed in a dry sob, terrified at showing her helplessness and vulnerability. But for once, the man that was once known as Rumplestiltskin didn’t dig his talons into her tender parts.

“You should start with trying,” he offered, and he looked old, so old as he smiled.

…  
..  
.  
..  
...

It finally happened a year later, when Pearl had reached ten.

There was something to say about the cycle of your mistakes repeating itself.

This time it didn’t come in a child she held on too tightly.

It came in a child she had never known how to hold in the first place.

Pearl had grown from the quiet, serious child she was into a wildling full of wickedness and impossible to handle. She was sweet, most of the time, very affectionate with her parents, family and friends, caring and generous; but she could also be a nightmare, defy their authority every step of the way and hitting all the weak spots of their confidence. Regina’s, especially. She had gotten particularly good at hurting her mother and getting under her skin. She pushed, and pushed, and Regina backed down, submitted, and never punished her. It was a surprise and a concern of everyone, how very lax she was with that child. There was only Emma to look at her with knowing eyes and to shake her head in disapproval everytime Pearl acted out in public and wasn’t appropriately scolded. But even she said nothing. They all held their breath, as if they’d been waiting for the play to enfold until its climax. The situation, though, had become more troubling when Pearl had discovered her powers. Since the age of eight, she’d been able to impose her will upon others. Nothing spectacular at first, like convincing one of her classmate to laugh at an unsuited time. Early on, she could only practice it on weaker minds, children and a few suggestible adults. It almost seemed like a joke, until it wasn’t. Until she began using it to get what she wanted, and got better at it. And still, Regina endured, and she shivered whenever her daughter came to rest her head on her lap, smiling sweetly at her.

“You’re not mad at me, are you Mama?”

She could only see them. Those eyes, as hard and as judging as her mother. Knowing all her failures, mocking her weakness.

She recoiled in fear of her own child, and Pearl sensed it, and kept pushing, fascinated by the void she encountered every time she reached out to her mother.

Fascinated and terribly hurt by this desertion she couldn’t understand.

…  
..  
.  
..  
...

They were at the stables.

It might have been folly on Regina’s part, or perhaps a perverse impulse.

Perhaps a stubborn desire to have a different outcome for her story this time.

Horses were the only thing on which she and her daughter connected without restraint. Henry had proven himself a rather shy rider, Roland had always preferred climbing trees, and Robin, though he’d had use for horses back in their land, was rather fond of a solid and steady ground under his feet.

But Pearl, she had even better skills than Regina’d had at her age, and she always seemed more peaceful around horses, more manageable.

They had come here that day after a particularly trying fight. Robin had had to pick up Pearl at the headmaster’s office after she’d forced a twelve-year-old to jump out the window. As they’d been on the first floor, he thankfully wasn’t injured in any other ways than a few scratches. But Robin’s anger had been terrifying.

“What were you thinking?”

Pearl was looking at him stubbornly, not fazed one bit, her arms crossed on her small chest.

“It’s not my fault. I told him to stop tugging on my pigtails. He didn’t listen.”

“So you thought you’d punish him by making him jump out the window? What if he’d gotten seriously hurt, Pearl?”

She’d rolled her eyes and Regina had felt like looking into a mirror.

“It’s not like we were high, it wouldn’t have been that bad.”

Robin had looked at Regina, where she was leaning back against the sink, wiping a glass with a dishcloth, her hands shaking nervously. She saw his silent plea for help, but she gave him a blank stare. Frustrated, worried sick, Robin had crouched down in front of Pearl, gently grabbing her shoulders.

“Pearl. Can’t you understand than using magic to force people to do what you want is… bad?”

“Why is it bad? Because some are not good enough to do it? It’s not my fault I have magic and the others don't. Why can't I use it? It's like asking someone to be less smart because some people are dumb. I don’t see why I have to lower myself at everyone’s level just because they can’t keep up. Because they’re weak.”

They both startled at the sound of broken glass on the tiles. They looked up at Regina, standing tight-lipped and white-faced, her eyes boring into Pearl.

“Pearl,” she whispered before her voice died out, and the little girl smirked at her.

“You’re just jealous because I’m more powerful than you,” she stuck out her tongue and ran out of the room, ignoring her father’s shouts to come back.

 

Robin had fought with her then when she’d told him she would take Pearl to ride for the afternoon.

“I can’t believe you’re letting her get away with it,” he said, incredulous. “Regina, our daughter willingly tried to hurt another child and you -”

“There’s nothing wrong with her,” she said quickly, and he sighed.

“Of course, there’s nothing wrong with her, but that doesn’t mean she’s not doing things that are very wrong. We can’t just ignore it and let her think that this sort of behavior doesn’t have any consequences. She needs to -”

“To what?” she snapped, her heart too loud in her chest. “To be corrected? To be threatened, to be -”

She took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose, avoiding Robin’s increasingly worried look.

“Of course not, but -”

“I am not doing that,” she breathed, a hand clutched to her chest. “I am not doing that mistake.”

He cocked his head, his eyes piercing her out, searching.

“Regina… she won’t stop loving you if you scold her. I know you’re afraid of repeating what happened with Henry but -”

“This is not about Henry!” she yelled, feeling insane and sick and so, so very tired. “Just stay out of this, Robin!”

She brushed past him, loathing herself to the rare point of wishing for death.

 

She was calmer now, as she leant her forehead against her horse’s to greet him, the chestnut stallion neighing softly, the sound reverberating deep into her, unlocking the tight places in her soul. Then, she lead Pearl two stalls further, where a quiet grey mare was waiting. The girl frowned.

“I’m not riding Sucre d’orge today?”

“She hurt her leg, remember, dear? She needs some rest before she can have you on her back. But you remember Mouse, you learned to ride with her.”

“Yeah, she’s old and slow,” Pearl whined. “I want to ride my horse!”

“Well, you can’t. Now grab a brush and get started.”

“No.”

That tone, Regina knew too well. She allowed herself a second to close her eyes, then turned towards Pearl, who was challenging her with the darkest eyes she’d ever seen her make.

“Pearl. Stop that. The day has been difficult enough already. Do as I say.”

“And what if I don’t?”

Her voice was sly, the words deliberate. She was trying to rile her up. To see when she would break. Regina kept her ground.

“You do not want to get down that path with me, young lady. Grab. That brush.”

“I don’t. Want to.”

Regina’s temper flared. She was exhausted, on edge, still raw from her fight with Robin, still bleeding from the memory that struck her in the kitchen, and at her wit’s end with her daughter’s behavior. She walked briskly to the bucket filled with grooming tools, grabbed a brush, and strode back towards Pearl, forcing it into her hand.

“Do it. Now.”

“No!”

Pearl threw the brush on the floor.

“Pick that up.”

“No.

“Pearl, pick it up this instant or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Pick it up.”

“Do it yourself!”

And then she felt it. The insidious tendrils of magic, slowly taking a hold on her. Possessing her. Trying to bend her to its will. Pearl’s magic. Pearl’s mind control. The one she had never, ever dare use on one of her parents before.

The one she was using on her now.

Regina’s mind went black.

Survival was the first instinct to kick on, the only one she held on to.

Her daughter’s magic broke against the furious power she suddenly unleashed in herself, and then the little girl was hoisted up into the air, her throat squeezed in a painful chokehold, her small feet wiggling helplessly.

“Put me down!”

Pearl was angry at first, not an ounce of fear in the black tones of her eyes.

Why would she fear a mother who had never hurt her, never fought her, who’d always backed down?

But this time, there was no mother to be found in the woman standing below her with her arm raised. Her face was as empty and cold as her never touched silverware, and the doors of her eyes were closed. Pearl began to feel a shift in her confidence, in the well-rounded world where she always obtained what she wanted, despite it not being what she needed.

“Mom?”

There was no response in the dark eyes that had never held much warmth, but never that much coldness either.

“Mama? Please, put me down.”

It broke. It was so sudden and strong she felt like watching her mother’s face being ripped in half, opening on quivering insides.

Her mother’s eyes now held so much fear and emotions her young age hadn’t touched yet or never came near of that Pearl felt even more frightened than she had just a second ago when her mother had stopped being her mother.

“Pearl,” her name was sobbed, and she was gently, so gently, lowered to the ground. She stood up, shivering, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Mama.”

Her mother’s face was wrecked with water, so many tears, ugly crying she had never witnessed yet, and suddenly the woman she had always seen as both strong and weak but always reliable spun on her heels and stormed out of the stables.

“Mama?”

…  
..  
.  
..  
...

Pearl reached her side as she emptied the last contents of her stomach in the weeds growing behind the stables.

“Pearl… no… go back…”

But Pearl didn’t move. She kept staring at her, but for once, her eyes didn’t seem so hard.

“Are you sick, Mama?”

Mama. She hadn’t called her that in such a long time. She’d become Mom, sometimes Mother, stern and distant, before she knew it. When had that happened?

“Can I get you some water?”

More tears spilled from her eyes again at the unusually gentle tone of her daughter. She shook her head and opened the old, rusty tap. She let the water run over her fingers until they became numb and frozen, and then she bent down to rince her mouth, and splash water across her overheated face.

She closed the tap after a while, staggered a few steps back, and all but limped back inside the building, allowing herself to crumble in the first empty stall, down on the hay.

Pearl followed.

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

Regina sucked in a breath, her head grasped between her hands.

“I didn’t mean to be so bad.”

That’s when the sobbing started again. Loud, hoarse, spooking the animals around her and terrifying her child who threw herself at her neck.

“Mommy!”

Regina opened her arms and closed them on the small, warm body pressed against her, her embrace so tight, as if she wanted to fuse them together forever. Pearl kept saying she was sorry against her shoulder, and eventually, Regina was able to calm down enough to pull back and gently hold her daughter’s face between her hands.

“No, Pearl. I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. I haven’t been a good mother to you. I haven’t been a mother at all.”

“I don’t understand.”

Regina smiled at her, and gestured for her to sit on her lap, which Pearl did willingly.

“What do you think a mother is, Pearl?”

The girl frowned.

“I don’t know. It’s you!”

“But what do mothers do?”

Pearl appeared to struggle with her words, a rare occurrence.

“She… gives goodnight kisses and makes breakfast?”

Regina couldn’t help a little wet laugh.

“Yes. And she raises you. She teaches you lot of things. She teaches you how to grow up. But what a mother is, Pearl, before everything else, is someone who loves you, unconditionally. And I haven’t been loving you like I should have.”

She swallowed harshly, and Pearl lowered her eyes. She had never lowered her eyes before anybody.

“Is that why you don’t like to hold me, or be alone with me? And why you never scold me when I make mistakes like Papa do? Because you don’t care?”

“No!”

She choked, tightening her arms around her child.

“I do care, Pearl, I do, it has nothing to do with you, it’s me. I have a problem.”

“What problem, Mama?”

Pearl’s eyes were so clear looking up at her now. How come she had never seen the clarity they possessed despite their darkness?

Slowly, she reached up to stroke back the slick black hair on her daughter’s forehead.

“When I was a little girl… I got hurt. Really, really bad. By someone I trusted and loved, more than anything. By my… by my mother.”

Pearl was listening intently, barely blinking.

“She did… she did terrible things. Things you sh-should never do to a child. You know how, sometimes, people get scars when they get hurt?”

Pearl nodded, a little finger rising to press against Regina’s upper lip.

“Like yours. Did your Mommy do this?”

“Y-yes. Yes she did. But what I wanted to say was, sometimes, you get other scars. Not ones other people can see, scars on the inside, and you’re the only one who can feel them, and they hurt, even worse than the ones on your skin. And, when you were born, those scars began to hurt me again, because I remembered - I remembered -”

She stopped as it became too much, and dropped her brow against her daughter’s head.

“I’m sorry, baby, I’m not making much sense.”

“Yes you are. Your mother did very mean things to you. And when I was born, you remembered all those mean things. And you were hurt?”

“Yes. And I was terrified, so terrified that I would do the same thing to you.”

Pearl laughed. She had Robin’s laugh and dimples. How had she missed this?

“But that’s silly, Mommy. You would never hurt me.”

“I almost did.”

She felt the tears well up again, but two little hands stopped them, each one resting gently on her cheeks.

“It’s okay, Mama. I forgive you. I know you didn’t mean it.”

She lowered her voice, looking kicked and ashamed.

“I didn’t mean to use magic on you either.”

Regina straightened, and gathered Pearl’s hands into her own.

“Pearl. Listen to me, sweetheart. You must never do that again. Never. Your magic isn’t bad, but the way you’re using it, it’s wrong. It hurts people. Magic can do so many beautiful things – you can do so many beautiful things – you don’t need to have power over people. Love and respect, these are things that can’t be bought, or forced. Do you understand?”

The child nodded timidly.

“Good.”

“Did your mother hurt you with magic?”

She considered avoiding the question. “Yes.”

Pearl looked horrified.

“Then I won’t do it again. I won’t do it ever, I’m sorry Mama, I’m sorry -”

“Sshh, sweetie, calm down. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. Oh Pearl.”

She raised the tiny fists to her lips, kissing the knuckles.

“You’re a good girl. You’ve always been a good girl. You’re just lost and confused. And you need more guidance from me. I’ve let my past control me and I made a mistake. You needed more than I chose to give you, and that’s on me, not you. But from now on, I will do better. I promise.”

Pearl smiled at her, all dimples and sun, and looking so very much like no one but herself.

“I will too, Mama. I’ll try to behave and not be so mean.”

Regina gave a tiny flick to the little bud of her daughter’s nose.

“Then we’re off to a very good start, don’t you think?”

They exchanged a full, loving smile, brimming with promises and second chances.

“Besides,” Regina said quietly. “My past can’t hurt me anymore. It’s over.”

It was a lie, but one children need to hear.

After all, she hadn’t said the whole truth about her Mother.

She wasn’t about to put on her wonderful daughter the burden of knowing that whenever she looked at her, she saw pain.

It wasn’t a truth that was ever to be said.

It was buried and gone, anyway. Only two people in this world to remember it.

And through Cora’s ghost, she could finally begin to see her daughter blooming into herself. The wildness that was all Zelena. Robin’s generosity and quickness to laugh. She could even begin to see her own, fiercely loving heart, reflected in Pearl’s easy tenderness and warm affection.

They could be okay. They were going to be.

“Mom?”

She smiled. Pearl had returned to more formal calling, but she could still hear her needy ‘Mama’ behind it. She hadn’t listened hard enough before.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“We should go away for the weekend. Just the two of us. Just the girls. We can go into Papa’s cabin. We’ll take the horses. But not Sucre d’orge because she needs to rest. But we could go, right? Just us.”

Regina blinked. She thought about how such a prospect would have terrified her this morning. Two whole days with no one but her daughter.  
She thought about how much she was looking forward to it now.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea,” she said, her lips brushing against Pearl’s forehead with infinite tenderness. With boundless love.

...  
..  
.  
..  
...

She was still smiling as she watched Pearl ride into the manege, her long black hair flying in the wind, her laugh booming thanks to the perfect acoustics of the place. She had felt a little too faint to ride herself, and said she was content with cheering her on on the side.

She didn’t turn her head as she felt her presence.

“One day, Mother, I will look over my shoulder, and you will be gone.”

She could have sworn she physically felt the hand at the small of her back.

“For your sake, I hope so, my love. Now, look at your daughter. Look at how beautiful she is.”

The both watched in silence Pearl taking a bold jump over an oxer.

“Are you afraid yet? Are you still afraid?”

She didn’t answer. She took a step forward, and waved at her daughter as she dashed by on her horse.


End file.
